Union will stand firm Elementary Teacher Strike Vote Feb. 13
Negotiations between public elementary teachers and school boards have become a game of Who Blinks First.
Neither side is budging with a strike vote looming Feb. 13.
“We have no reason to blink,” David Clegg, president of the Elementary Teacher’s Federation of Ontario, said in Sarnia Wednesday.
“The talk of a strike in this particular (economic) climate should raise eyebrows,” he said. “But if (people) think about it, if we’re prepared to take this stance in this situation, there has to be something seriously wrong with what’s going on.”
A strike could come as early as the end of March.
Clegg said public elementary teachers haven’t been given the same respect as other teacher and support worker unions. They’re worried about previously negotiated benefits being stripped from the contract.
About 73,000 public elementary teachers — including 1,000 in the Lambton-Kent — have been without a contract since August.
When a December negotiation deadline passed without an agreement, the province’s offer of 12 per cent over four years was reduced to four per cent over two years.
Local negotiations with the Lambton Kent District School Board are to resume Jan. 20. Board officials have said there are no contract “strips” proposed in local talks. But education director Gayle Stucke has said it will be difficult to meet union demands without additional provincial funding.
